Robert is my half brother who exists because my dad can’t keep his dick in his pants.
My father.
My Bob is know to many on this board as Sternvogel.
Most of you know via his posts that he is a fanatic about grammer and spelling, loves trivia of any kind, enjoys women’s basketball, despises the Snuggle fabric softener bear with a hate as burning white hot as twenty suns, and never omits a adding a pun or two if at all possible. You probably don’t know that he’s also very loyal, helpful, kind, considerate, and the best sweetie anyone could ever want. We “argue” over who’s luckier in the relationship, but I have no doubt that I got the better end of the deal.
I have always called him Bob, as that’s what he told me his name was. All his family, however, call him Rob.
I was childhood friends with Robbie (who became Rob in high school, by which time we weren’t friends anymore).
I dated Rob the summer before I turned 17.
At my last company, Rob was one of my project managers.
At my current company, Bob is one of the software developers.
My co-worker’s husband is Rob.
I have never been related to anyone named Robert (regardless of nickname), and I have never known anyone who went by Bobby.
Sorry, but that made me smile. 
My Bobby is my cousin. I never saw my cousins much growing up, but he was always my favorite. He is a twin, but I’ve always been closer to him than his brother. Close being a relative term, of course. I don’t think I’ve talked to him since our Grandma died about five years ago.
My Rob is actually my sister’s Rob. Her husband is a very quiet, very patient man, who sometimes seems to have absolutely no understanding of how the mechanical world works. But he’s an outstanding sixth-grade teacher.
And the mount of my first deer is also a Bob. What? You don’t name your taxidermy?
Bob is my dad!
Bob is my ex-brother in law. He joined the NYPD the day I was born and retired from the campus police at Northern Illinois University 25 years later. Bob became noticibly off-kilter after their son was born and got worse upon retiring. The divorce was messy but he let my sister keep the majority of their stuff.
The Bobby I know is best friends with one of my kinda sorta friends. He’s a pretty good guy; I went to a carnival with him and a few other people the other day. We shared a little car thingy on the Zipper and laughed and swore together as we flipped around.
The Robert I know is a close friend of my brother. He’s really handsome. Poor boy just isn’t smart though… one of those people that are really, really athletic and a great person but just don’t have the smarts. I remember a big group of us were playing hide and seek and he ran into a post.
Bob was my first teenage crush. I was in grade 8 and I was smitten. We dated for a week and then he dumped me in a note that he passed me between classes. I was heartbroken. Then he started to date this girl a year younger who everybody hated. Well at least my friends and I hated her. They dated for a few years, my group of friends were very mean to her. Teenagers suck.
Bob was my 11th grade Physics and Chemistry 1 teacher. Robert is a guy who graduated a year ahead of me. Robert was a funny guy. Off the wall stuff too.
One time at our lunch table, Robert, who was sitting by some guy he didn’t like (Chase) was listening to a conversation at the table
Chase (to someone across from him): “Hey man, have you ever played Freedom Fighters?”
and Robert, without missing a beat, said : “Hey Chase, have you ever fucked a chicken? I mean I haven’t, but thought you might’ve. I did get ahold of this duck one time… quackin bastard…”
Ok, well i guess you had to be there.
“My” Bob is my two year-old son.
But we usually call him Puppy.
Robert is my (only and slightly younger) brother. Pretty much everyone calls him ‘Rob’, but I think of him as Robert. He’s the greatest.
I have an uncle Bobby, though half the time, people call him Pete. Who knows why. He’s my mom’s second-oldest brother. He’s very funny, generous, and prone to practical jokes.
The name “Robert” is a tradition in my dad’s family; his middle name was Robert. Mine’s the first generation that hasn’t had any, and my dad once made me promise to name one of my kids Robert (and you see how well that’s going).
So yes. There was my Grandpa Bob, who was a United Church minister. He and my dad often didn’t see eye to eye when Dad was younger (again, a tradition passed down through the generations). He married my parents and baptized me and my brother. We visited him quite often when we were kids; he and Grandma Edna kept the cottage by the lake, where my dad’s family still hangs out in summer.
My Uncle Rob was the black sheep of the family – of the unconventional, not evil, variety, I hasten to add. He was unhappily married and later divorced, and has since remarried and has a lovely little seven-year-old daughter with my Aunt Lynn. After a certain period of vagueness in his earlier life, they half-built a house near Thunder Bay, and later moved into a different house, which later burnt down soon before my dad died; they’ve since rebuilt. It’s a treat to see him and Lynn and Kallie at family stuff, when they can make it down from the lakehead (a fairly long trip).
I know 2, and not really all that well.
There is a Robert that works for the same company I do, as a General Manager of a winery in Southern California. I’ve met him only a handful of times.
There is a Bob that is the General Manager of a winery up here in this area. I end up in a meeting with him about once a month, but we never really have to work together directly.
Robert is my father. Mom used to call him Bobby. His family calls him Robbie.
My dad was Bob. He was the best man I’ve ever known. Father of five, his dad was a real SOB. He swore never to be like that, and he kept his promise. He always told his daughters we could be anything we wanted to be, if we worked hard enough. He was married to my mother for 46 years, until his death from cancer.
My brother is Bob, although we in the family always call him Rob. He’s not the man our dad was, but he tries. He’s a good dad to his four sons, one of whom is Robby.
My nephew is Robert. He’s smart and funny. He was in a car accident a year ago which broken lots of bones and causes lots of pain even now, but he still gets himself to work at CompUSA everyday. He’s the best saleman the store has, but he’s in horrible pain standing on the sales floor. He likes Sci-Fi and Fantasy (which I introduced him to) and now likes it that he can recommend books to me.
My Uncle Bob, my mother’s brother. My dad used to joke that he and Uncle Bob were God and God’s brother-in-law. He’s an identical twin. When he was born, my grandmother gave Uncle Bob top my mother and the other twin to her older sister to take care of. These things happen in families of eleven childen. To this day, even though my mother is in her seventies, Uncle Bob still looks up to her.
StG
When I first saw this thread, I thought “Hey, I don’t really know any Roberts.” Then I thought again.
Mr. Kiminy’s brother is named Robert, and we call him Rob for short.
Mr. Kiminy’s sister is married to someone else named Robert, who we actually call Robert to distinguish him from the original Rob.
I also had a great-uncle named Bob, but he died many years ago, and I had completely forgotten about him.
More to the point:
I have a brother who goes by Rick (a junior of my father who goes by Dick).
I have a stepbrother who goes by Rick (who is a junior of his father who is my stepfather, who goes by Bud.)
I have a brother-in-law who goes by Rick. (Well, they aren’t legally married, but as close as you can come legally without actually exchanging vows.)
In my life, Rob is definitely a different person from Robert. But when my mother refers to “Rick”, I honestly usually cannot tell who she is talking about.
I once knew a Rob/in, but no Bobs, save for a Bob Dobbs book my younger brother owned.
Reading the replies in this thread is kinda lke reading Chicken Soup for the Soul.